The influence of dental loupes on the ocular hazard.

Abstract

The use of dental and surgical loupes is increasing in odontology and medicine. During dental treatments this use is often combined with bright blue light sources such as from dental material curing lights and/or lights attached to the loupes. By the aid of an experimental model we investigated whether the time to reach the limit value for reflected, blue light to the eyes of an operator would be influenced while wearing magnification loupes when being exposed to the emission from a dental curing light (Price RB, Labrie D, Bruzell EM, Sliney DH, Strassler HE. The dental curing light: A potential health risk. J Occup Environ Hyg. 2016 Aug;13(8):639-46). This was not the case, although exceedance of the limit value due to the curing light alone was confirmed. Topics of discussion are whether the change in pupil movement while using loupes will cause more light to enter the eyes and if additional light sources such as LEDs attached to the loupes and the overhead working light will increase the ocular hazard.